Types of tourism e-commerce

According to different standards, tourism e-commerce has many classification methods. This paper introduces the classification according to the transaction types of tourism e-commerce, and the terminal types used to realize the transaction form of tourism e-commerce 1 B2B.

In tourism e-commerce, B2B transaction forms mainly include the following situations:

* Product agents between tourism enterprises, such as travel agencies that book air tickets and hotel rooms, and travel agencies that sell travel route products organized by travel wholesalers.

* The travel agencies work in their own way, that is, two or more travel agencies operate the same tourist route and leave the group at the same time, and each travel agency only pulls a few guests. At this time, with the consent of tourists, travel agencies can merge tourists and hand them over to one of the travel agencies to reduce the cost of scale operation.

* Travel agencies order tickets for local tourist hotel rooms and scenic spots in bulk.

* the entrusted payment relationship between the tourist source group and the destination group, and so on.

Tourism is a comprehensive industry composed of many sub-industries, which needs the coordination of all sub-industries. There are complex relationships of agency, transaction and cooperation among various tourism enterprises, such as food, accommodation, transportation, shopping and entertainment, etc. Tourism B2B e-commerce has great room for development.

E-commerce among tourism enterprises can be divided into two forms.

One kind of e-commerce between non-specific enterprises is to find the best partner for each transaction in an open network. Peer trading platforms of some professional tourism websites provide virtual market space for inquiry, quotation, inquiry and transaction among tourism enterprises.

The second is e-commerce between specific enterprises, which is to establish an information network of information data sharing, information exchange and file transfer between enterprises and trading partners for the sake of * * * economic interests and * * * *. For example, airline computer reservation system (CRS) is a ticket distribution system in tourism, which links airlines with ticket agents (such as airline ticket offices, travel agencies, tourist hotels, etc.). ). The server of the air ticket agent is linked with the server of the airline online in real time. When the discount information of the air ticket changes, it will be reflected in the agent's database in real time. Every time a ticket agent sells a ticket, the ticket inventory in the airline database will change. The realization of B2B e-commerce has greatly improved the efficiency of information sharing and docking among tourism enterprises and the operational efficiency of the whole tourism industry.

2.B2E trading mode

Here, the E(BusinesstoEnterprise) of B2E refers to non-tourism enterprises, institutions and organs that have frequent business contacts with tourism enterprises or provide business travel management services. Large enterprises often need to deal with a large number of business trips, conferences and exhibitions, and incentive travel affairs. They often choose to cooperate with professional travel agencies, which provide business travel budget and travel plan consultation, and act as a full-time business travel agent, thus saving time and financial costs. Other enterprises maintain relatively fixed business relations with specific air ticket agents and tourist hotels, thus enjoying preferential prices.

The more advanced solution of B2E tourism e-commerce is Tourism Management System (TMS). It is an application software system with network function, which is installed on the enterprise client and connected with the travel agency e-commerce system through the network. At the client, the person in charge of enterprise travel can input the enterprise's special travel policy, travel time and destination, settlement method and service requirements into TMS, and the system will transmit these requirements to the travel agency. Through computer automatic matching or manual operation, travel agencies design the best travel plan for corporate customers, book air tickets and hotels for enterprises, and feed back the scheduled results to corporate customers. Corporate customers who have established long-term business relations with travel agencies through TMS can enjoy the convenient services and numerous discounts provided by travel agencies and save travel costs. At the same time, TMS also provides statistical report function. Managers of user enterprises can obtain comprehensive and detailed travel expense reports of the whole company in real time through this system, and can make corresponding financial analysis, thus effectively controlling costs and strengthening management.

3.B2C trading mode

B2C tourism e-commerce transaction mode, that is, e-tourism retail. In the transaction process, the individual traveler first obtains the information of the tourist destination through the Internet, and then independently designs the travel activity schedule online, and reserves hotel rooms, air tickets, etc. Or sign up for a tour group. For tourism, a highly dispersed industry, tourism B2C e-commerce is convenient for tourists to search and book tourism products remotely and overcome the information asymmetry caused by distance. Booking and booking air tickets through travel e-commerce websites is one of the most widely used forms of e-commerce in the world today. In addition, tourism B2C e-commerce also includes tourism enterprises auctioning tourism products to tourists and intermediary services provided by tourism e-commerce websites.

4.C2B trading mode

C2B trading mode is that tourists put forward their needs, and then enterprises meet the needs of tourists through competition, or tourists negotiate with tourism enterprises through the Internet.

C2B tourism e-commerce is mainly conducted through electronic middlemen (professional travel websites and portal travel channels). This kind of electronic middleman provides a virtual and open online intermediary market and information exchange platform. Tourists can post demand information directly on the Internet, and the two sides can reach a deal voluntarily through communication after the tourism enterprise inquires.

There are two main forms of C2B tourism e-commerce. The first form is reverse auction, which is the reverse process of bidding auction. Tourists provide a price range to buy a certain tourism service product, and tourism enterprises bid. Bidding can be open or hidden, and tourists will choose tourism products with appropriate quality and price for trading. This form is not attractive to tourism enterprises because the booking volume of a single tourist is small. The second form is online group, that is, tourists put forward their own designed tourist routes and publish them online to attract other tourists with the same interests. Through the network information platform, a certain number of tourists who are willing to travel together will be gathered. At this time, they can ask travel agencies to arrange trips or directly book hotel rooms and other tourism products, which can increase their ability to negotiate with tourism enterprises and get preferential treatment.

Tourism C2B e-commerce takes advantage of the characteristics of wide information dissemination and low cost brought by information technology, especially the online group operation mode, which is difficult to meet the needs of personalized tourism under traditional conditions and reduce the cost of large-scale group tours. Tourism C2B e-commerce is a demand-oriented transaction mode, which embodies the dominant position of tourists in market transactions, helps tourism enterprises to understand customer needs more accurately and timely, and promotes the development of tourism to product enrichment and personality satisfaction. In the network information system of tourism e-commerce, there must be some information terminals with interactive functions, so that information resources can be used by people and at the same time accept information feedback from users on the e-commerce system. According to the forms of information terminals, tourism e-commerce includes website e-commerce, voice e-commerce, mobile e-commerce and multimedia e-commerce.

1, website e-commerce

At present, it is the most common form for users to access websites through networked personal computers to realize e-commerce. Internet is a global media. It combines the bright colors of brochures, the dynamic effect of multimedia technology, the information efficiency of real-time updating and the interactive function of retrieval and query, and is an ideal medium for promoting tourism products. Its average cost and marginal cost are extremely low. Whether a website is visited by 10000 people or 1000 people, the production and maintenance costs are the same. When destination marketing agencies use other means for marketing, the budget will increase with the increase of geographical coverage. Internet has nothing to do with geographical factors, and the cost of global publicity and sales is no different from that of local sales. Netizens are mostly young and high-income people, which is a potential tourism market.

China tourism website can be traced back to 1996 at the earliest. After several years of exploration and accumulation, there are quite a number of tourism websites with certain information service strength in China, which can provide all-round online information services related to eating, living, traveling, traveling, shopping and entertainment in the tourism field. According to different emphases, it can be divided into the following six types:

* Built by direct suppliers of tourism products (services). For example, the websites built by Beijing Kunlun Hotel, Shanghai Youth Annual Conference Hotel and Shanghai Longbai Hotel belong to this type.

* Established by travel intermediary service providers, also known as online booking service agents. It can be roughly divided into two categories: one is built by traditional travel agencies, such as Lijiang South Tour and Leisure China, which were launched by Lijiang South Travel Service Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Port Travel Service respectively; The other is a comprehensive travel website, such as Ctrip. Com and China Tourism Information Network, both of which have venture capital backgrounds, will seize the market share of online travel with their good personalized services and powerful interactive functions.

* Local travel websites. For example, Jinling Tourism Special Line and Guangxi Huaguang Tourism Network mainly focus on local scenery or local tourism business.

* government background website. For example, Xintianyou website, which belongs to Aviation Information Center, mainly serves air ticket booking and relies on GDS(GlobalDistributionSystem).

* Tourism information website. They provide consumers with a large number of rich and professional tourism information resources, and sometimes provide a small amount of travel booking intermediary services. For example, China Travel Service offers and online travel.

* In ICP portal, almost all websites involve tourism content to varying degrees, such as the travel channel of Sina Living Space, the travel columns of Sohu and Netease, and the travel websites of China, etc. It shows the great vitality and market space of online travel.

From the perspective of service functions, the service functions of tourism websites can be summarized into the following three categories:

* Collection, dissemination, retrieval and navigation of tourism information. These information contents generally involve the introduction of scenic spots, catering, transportation and tourist routes. Tourism common sense, tourism precautions, tourism news, currency exchange, tourism destination weather, environment, humanities and other information, as well as tourism impressions;

* Online sales of tourism products (services). This website provides various discounts and concessions for travel and related products (services), as well as search and reservation for airlines, restaurants, cruise ships and car rental services.

* Personalized customized services. From booking tickets online, booking shops, consulting electronic maps, to completely relying on the guidance of websites to sightseeing and shopping in unfamiliar environments. This kind of online travel, which is characterized by self-defined itinerary and self-help price comparison, will become the dominant mode of tourism in China in the near future. Therefore, whether to provide personalized customized service has become an essential function of travel websites, especially online booking service websites.

2. Voice e-commerce

The so-called voice e-commerce means that people can obtain information and conduct transactions through any fixed or mobile phone by using voice recognition and voice synthesis software. This method is fast and allows telephone users to enjoy the low-cost service of the Internet. For tourism enterprises or service websites, voice e-commerce will automate call centers, reduce costs and improve customer service.

One mode of voice commerce is that enterprises establish a single application and database as an extension of the existing interactive voice response system. The application and database can be transmitted to a browser through a website, to a small-screen device using wireless application protocol (WAP), or to voice using voice recognition and synthesis technology. Another mode of voice commerce is using VoiceXML to surf the Internet. VoiceXML is a new technical protocol for converting web pages into voice, which is being conceived by AT&T, IBM, Lucent and Motorola. Experts assert: "Although voice technology is not fully ready, it will be the content of the next revolution."

3. Mobile e-commerce

The so-called mobile e-commerce refers to an e-commerce activity that organically combines the mobile communication network and the Internet. Website e-commerce takes personal computer as the main interface and is "wired e-commerce"; Mobile e-commerce can complete business activities through mobile phones and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), and its functions will integrate financial transactions, security services, shopping, bidding, auction, entertainment and information. With the development of mobile communication, data communication and internet technology, the integration of the three is getting closer and closer. Although mobile data service only accounts for a small part of the total wireless traffic at present, many people in the industry believe that it will reach 70% by 2005. In 2003, the number of mobile phone users in the world has exceeded 654.38 billion, of which 60% users have the ability to use wireless Internet services.

Tourists are mobile, and mobile e-commerce will be widely used in tourism. Nokia has developed a location-based service: "Input personal data into the mobile phone or mobile personal assistant in advance, so that when I am at a certain point, it will tell me where there is a cinema nearby, which movies I may be interested in, and where there are my favorite books and dishes, and I will know whether I will be late for the airport. If it's already late, when is the next one? It won't. These are completely brought about by mobility, and fixed Internet services are not like this. "

4. Multimedia e-commerce

Multimedia e-commerce generally consists of network center, call processing center, operation center and multimedia terminal. It connects multimedia terminals all over the city with network information centers and call processing centers through high-speed data channels, electronic touch screen computers, bill printers, POS machines, telephones and network communication modules with voice, image and text functions. Provide dynamic, 24-hour uninterrupted commercial and public information to users, realize electronic transactions based on existing financial networks through POS machines, provide bill printing after transactions, and connect vending machines and large advertising display screens.

For multimedia e-commerce serving tourism, multimedia touch-screen computer systems are generally deployed in railway stations, airports, hotel lobbies, shopping malls (shopping centers), important scenic spots, tourist consultation centers and other places, and customized application systems are organized according to the needs of consulting objects in different occasions. In the form of multimedia information, it vividly provides tourists with a wide range of tourism public and commercial information, including the introduction of urban tourist attractions, the inquiry of tourist facilities and services, electronic maps, traffic inquiries, weather forecasts and so on, by using simple and humanized interfaces such as images and sounds. Some multimedia e-commerce terminals also have the function of selling air tickets, boat tickets and boat tickets. Visitors can pay by credit card, stored value card, IC card and debit card to get printed bills.